Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "That" and substitute the following:

"Having regard to the fact that the Bill contains matters unrelated to the issues that were the subject of extensive discussions with interest groups representing affected persons and the additional matter adversely affects the interests of those persons and having regard also to the failure of the Minister for Health and Children to publish an explanatory memorandum outlining her reasons for including the additional matter, Dáil Éireann declines to give a second reading to the Bill.".

I will explain why the Labour Party is tabling this amendment. This Bill is a betrayal of a small blighted minority of men and women who suffer sickness and stigma as a direct result of negligence by the State. Instead of providing protection, the State, in the case of the contaminated blood scandal, poisoned vulnerable people. In some cases, the effects were so terrible that people died. Other people have had to deal with serious ill health. When this scandal was exposed, the Irish people rightly demanded a compassionate and honourable response by the State to the heartbreaking plight of innocent people so cruelly afflicted. All the Labour Party is asking is for today is for the same approach to be maintained in this legislation.

In their long struggle for justice, the survivors achieved certain rights and entitlements. These are statutory rights and entitlements that were enshrined in law in the hepatitis C compensation scheme because the then Minister for Health, Deputy Michael Noonan, did the right thing by these people. He endured vicious attack at times, particularly from Fianna Fail, in connection with his record. In light of that record, the treachery of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats in steamrolling through a Bill which dismantles some of those entitlements which were so hard and painfully fought for is striking. It is striking to witness how hypocritical and mean-spirited this Government attack on those who have suffered already and who are about to be marginalised and disempowered in this Bill is. We all understand that this is a Government which has lost touch with the people, but it is a new experience to realise that it has also lost touch with basic humanity.

In addition to being treacherous, this Bill is also dishonest. It was always meant to be a stand-alone Bill to provide a scheme of insurance cover for people who could not access insurance. The Bill was intended to provide for nothing else. It was a simple provision but it took a long time to evolve. We support that original provision. A person would want to be out of his or her mind to object to it. It is an important piece of the jigsaw which is long overdue. Insurance has been a long-standing problem for these unfortunate people, some of whom have died without it because there was no legislative framework to ensure they could access it. Others suffered losses connected to, for example, the cost of holidays, because insurance was denied them.

However, we should be clear that this Bill does not deal solely with insurance. It should be solely concerned with insurance but it is not. As far back as June 1994, Positive Action raised the issue of insurance with the Department of Health. Since then, the four organisations representing the people affected — the Irish Haemophilia Society, the Irish Kidney Association, Positive Action and Transfusion Positive — have been engaged in protracted negotiations.

In December 2004, the Tánaiste gave a guarantee that the insurance proposal would be presented to the Government in early January of this year. What followed was extensive correspondence from the organisations in their attempt to get the Government to live up to its commitments. The process was so slow and painful, it resembled tooth extraction, but these organisations were present to assist that process at all times.

Let us remember the commitment required. On the one hand, there is a Government with the resources of the Parliamentary Counsel, Ministers, Ministers of State, civil servants and expert groups and, on the other, there are small organisations that are to a great extent dependent on pro bono efforts and whatever resources they can acquire. That the organisations commissioned legislation, which I have with me, displays how committed they are to ensuring that this issue is resolved. To this day, they make the point that they are willing to sit down with departmental officials to resolve issues that have arisen. The generous and proactive approach they have adopted is in stark contrast to the defensiveness and lack of information and accountability marking the approach of the Tánaiste and her Department.

These people were treated disgracefully. On 20 June 2006, the organisations were given a copy of the Bill for the first time. Following their perusal, they issued a statement as follows:

The Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children published the above Bill on 20 June 2006. The Department of Health had been in negotiations with the above groups to provide a scheme to provide insurance for persons affected with Hepatitis C and HIV so that they could obtain insurance on the same basis as healthy persons.

Regrettably, the Tánaiste proposes in the Bill which is to come before the Dáil on Thursday, to make fundamental amendments to the Hepatitis C Compensation Act 1997 which will significantly limit the categories of persons entitled to make claims for compensation and for provision under the health code. Our groups were not informed until 20 June of these radical proposals which are unacceptable and should be opposed.

The organisations wholeheartedly engaged in a lengthy, drawn out process in the interests of their members and the people they represent. I can only imagine the disappointment they felt when they read the Bill because it was supposed to be a cause of triumph and celebration. The Tánaiste should be getting plaudits for what she did, as that would have been the context in which any right-minded person would have expected the Bill to be published. When the Tánaiste announced she was publishing the Bill, she did not mention these fundamental amendments which are opposed by the organisations representing those severely affected. It was to the astonishment of those groups that the legislation was not an insurance Bill. It was about——

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